


Above the Atmosphere

by ArchitectOfTheStars (AdaEinar)



Series: Plance Fics [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altea (Voltron), Altean Hunk (Voltron), Altean Keith (Voltron), Altean Lance (Voltron), Altean Matt Holt, Altean Pidge | Katie Holt, Altean Plance, Altean Shiro (Voltron), Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff, Guard Keith (Voltron), Guard Lance, Guard Shiro (Voltron), Mechanic Hunk (Voltron), Mutual Pining, Princess Pidge | Katie Holt, Stars, altean au, plance, plance au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdaEinar/pseuds/ArchitectOfTheStars
Summary: After burning off half her hair in one of her daily escapes from the Altean palace to Hunk's automaton shop, Pidge is stuck with a new guard--Lance. To her surprise, he's actually fun to spend time with, and willing to go along with her little adventures.Essentially, an Altean Plance one-shot.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: Plance Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933597
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Above the Atmosphere

Pidge pulled up the hood of her cloak and carefully, quietly opened the window, wincing whenever it creaked. Her new guard, Lance, had much better hearing than the last guy who’d watched her. (Unsurprising, considering he was about seventy years younger.) He would hear and notice if she made any noises besides those of turning pages. She had gotten him to agree to waiting outside in the hallway, because she “wanted to be able to read without you watching me like a stalker”, but he had insisted on staying near her door and listening.

Lance seemed nice—cheerful, funny, although a little obnoxious sometimes—but he _had_ still signed up to replace her last guard, who had quit when she snuck off to Hunk’s automaton shop and accidentally burned off half her hair. Now, sporting a head of boy’s length hair and stuck with a new guard, sneaking out was harder. (Not that the boy’s length hair had anything to do with sneaking out. She was just stuck with it now.) Lance may be almost her age, fun to be around, and easy to talk to, but he was still a guard. His job was to keep her safe, not intellectually stimulated.

Why couldn’t they see that she would be a much better Princess of Altea if she could have the freedom to learn whatever she wanted? Just a few hours every day to play with robots. That’s all she was asking for.

Pidge grabbed her green bayard from the bushes where it was hidden. Stealing it from the guards had been no easy feat, but it was necessary—she had to defend herself somehow if she was going to go out in the city without guards. Her family may be paranoid, but that didn’t mean they were wrong about the risks of being a royal out in the city.

The bayard had shaped itself to her personality, so instead of the sword or rifle that it usually formed for the guards, it looked like an arrow-shaped charged blade that could shoot out and be used as something between a bungee cord and a trapeze line.

Pidge looked back at the window. There was no one in her room, so she was pretty sure she was safe. She tightened the cloak around her and turned to run towards the hedges of the palace garden, which hid her from anyone who would happen to glance out and see her.

But instead of hiding herself in the bushes, she ran smack into a tall boy wearing blue armor. 

He smirked down at her. “Going somewhere, Princess?”

“Lance.” She swallowed. “Uh . . .” She knew she could give him no excuse. She was supposed to be in her room, reading, not springing through the palace gardens wearing a cloak and holding a stolen weapon. Even she couldn’t explain this away.

She knew what would happen next. He would take her back to the castle, let her family— Mother, Father, Matt, cousin Allura, Captain of the Guards Shiro, and Matt’s personal guard Keith—know that she had tried to sneak out. Again. And had almost succeeded, too.

The chances of her being able to get out again would be minute. But she still might be able to do it. And fortunately, Lance hadn’t guessed where she was sneaking off to.

“Let me guess, to Hunk Garrett’s robot shop?”

“Automaton shop. And how did you—”

He grinned. “You really thought no one would notice how you know more about engineering than you should, with the training princesses are given? And besides, where else would your hair be burnt off?”

“Mother and Father swallowed the restaurant oven lie,” Pidge muttered.

“Don’t underestimate your parents." 

Pidge knew she shouldn't underestimate her family. Like her, her whole family was smart. Intelligence was something of an asset when you’re Altean royalty. What isn’t an asset is insatiable curiosity and rebelliousness.

She sighed. Not it was really over—and over for good. She turned away from him fought to keep the tears from coming to her eyes. She could feel the sensation of being trapped setting in. Trapped, limited, lost. All her freedom and exploring and _life_ over in one moment.

“Well, let’s go,” Lance said softly, gesturing for her to follow him. But instead of leading her back to the palace, he started walking towards the garden hedges.

“Where are you going?” she asked, skipping to catch up with him.

“Hunk Garrett’s automaton shop, right?” Lance called back.

“But I thought—” She finally caught up with his long legs and went quiet to catch her breath. Quiznack, how did he walk so fast? She was naturally a fast walker, and she could barely keep up. Lance had no trouble filling her silence.

“If I go with you, it’s not dangerous, right? That’s the whole point of a guard.” He flashed her a lopsided smile, with one eyebrow quirked upwards accompanying a grin that was somewhere between cheeky and smooth. 

She ducked her head, too flustered by the smile to meet his eyes. “Right.”

———

“So, Pidge,” Hunk said, gesturing to the computer he usually let her program on when she came over, “I found this new programming language. It focuses on objects and their attributes, instead of functions. I was curious to see how you’d take to it. I’ve found it’s spectacular for setting up machine learning robots.”

“You ‘found’ it, huh? Let me look at it,” Pidge said, shifting in her seat to get closer to the screen. Her fingers flew over the keys, picking up the language even more quickly than the rumors said she did. As she typed, she found a few things that made her chuckle. “Wow, it is perfect for machine learning. You came up with this language yourself, didn't you, Hunk?”

Hunk blushed. “Yeah.”

“Don’t be modest, it’s amazing! This is revolutionary,” she said, her eyes bright with fascination.

“Wow, you’re an even bigger nerd than they say,” Lance chuckled. There was something endearing about it, though he never would’ve pinned himself as the kind of guy to like computer-obsessed girls.

Hunk turned around, laughing. “She _is_ , isn’t she?! Don’t get me started! And it’s not just computers, either. I’m pretty sure she has the intergalactic ship class catalog memorized, and ask her to recite the Altean Model of Particles. She’s _brilliant_. It’s too bad she can only come over to help me about once a movement.” He turned back to point out something on the computer to Pidge, then blinked and turned back to focus on Lance. “Wait a tick, who are you?”

To Lance’s surprise, Pidge actually bothered to look away from the computer. He wouldn’t have thought anything could pull her out of it. “Hunk, this is Lance, my new personal guard.”

“He came _with_ you?!”

She smiled. “He’s the best guard yet.”

“I, uh . . .” Lance turned bright red. “What? Um, thanks?”

Hunk laughed as if he knew something. “I’m glad she finally got a guard who supports her curiosity,” he said. “Anyone want food?”

“Me!” Pidge held up her hand, turning back to her coding

Lance tried to swallow his uncharacteristic awkwardness and managed to say, “Sure.”

———

“You and Hunk got along really well,” Pidge observed. And she was right, they had. They had talked the entire time Pidge programmed, although she hadn’t been paying enough attention to hear what they had been talking about. She had a feeling that next time, she wouldn’t be the only one who wanted to drop by Hunk’s shop.

Lance chuckled. “Well, it’s not often I met someone as willing to joke as he is.” He rolled his eyes. “Heaven knows Keith and Shiro are way more serious.”

“Believe me, I know.”

He draped his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close, and Pidge prayed he didn’t see her blush. “You’re pretty fun, too, especially when you bother to actually pull away from the computer.”

“Th-thanks.” Then her face fell. “We should probably get back soon, shouldn’t we.”

“Only if we want to,” Lance grinned. “I’m sure that you and I can come up with an excuse together.”

“Yes!” she said eagerly. “Yes, let’s do that!”

“So what should we do next?”

“I was hoping to maybe see some of the ships they’re launching? Just the satellites, not the interstellar ones.”

“Sure, that sounds fun. I think I know where the launchp—” His eyes widened, and he pointed at something over her shoulder with his left hand, drawing his bayard with his right. “Pidge! Look out!”

Pidge felt a loop of rope wrap around her waist and yank her into the air, away from Lance. Screaming, she was pulled into the sky and onto a nearby balcony, where a man dressed in all purple stood, two knives out.

“Hello, Princess.”

Pidge pulled out her bayard, stumbling to the railing of the balcony and being careful to remain facing the assassin. Below, she could see Lance had already activated his bayard and was trying to aim at the assassin. He growled in frustration.

“I can’t get a clear shot!” he called up to her.

“OK, just let me—” She yelped and dodged a lunge from the knife guy, leaping to the side and holding her weapon in front of her. It wouldn’t do much to protect her, and as confident as she was, she didn’t have much training when it came to actual combat. “I’ll maneuver him into a good position!”

Lance called something back to her, but she was too busy fending off the knife guy’s swipes. He backed her up onto the railing, where she balanced precariously. 

“Pidge, don’t—”

Too late. Pidge took a split second to calculate--literally running through physics formulas and calculating trigonometric conversions in her head--and leapt off the edge of the balcony. She shot her bayard at the balcony above the one she’d just jumped off. It connected cleanly and retracted, swimming her upwards with a gut-wrenching tug. The knife guy, without thinking, leapt up to catch her foot--putting him right in Lance’s line of fire.

He was dead in one shot.

Pidge swung down to the ground, where Lance immediately pulled her into a hug. “Are you OK?” he asked, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry, I should’ve— It’s my job to—“ He shook his head. “And I’m supposed to keep you safe. I’m so sorry, Pidge.”

“Thanks,” she said softly, pulling away. “You did just fine. I’m alive and unharmed, aren’t I?”

“Barely.” He frowned at himself. She shook him away from his thoughts.

“Hey.” She grinned. “We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

“Totally.” Then his grin wavered. “But . . . we should definitely get back now. You just almost died.”

“I still want to see the ships.”

“Pidge, we shouldn’t—”

“We’ll be fine.”

“But you almost—”

“I’ve got you. And I’m armed.”

“I really don’t think—”

She glared at him, trying to communicate just how determined she was to stay out and keep having fun. And it wasn’t just childishness. She was pretty confident they would be able to defend themselves if something happened again.

He stared into her eyes and seemed to get the message. With a sigh, he admitted defeat. “OK. But if we get in trouble . . . well, not to mention that I’ll be fired, I’m blaming you.”

“We won’t get in trouble. We’ve got a sharpshooter protecting us.”

———

Lance hadn’t realized that when Pidge said “see the ships they’re launching”, she meant “sneak onto one of the ships they’re launching”. He should’ve, knowing her, but it seemed too crazy even for her.

He smiled to himself as Pidge released him from the desperate hug she had instinctively initiated when the ship had launched. He didn’t blame her. Lance had been downright terrified, since, y’know, they were going to _space_ and didn’t even have _seats_ , much less seat belts. He’d clutched her back just as hard.

“We’re definitely getting in trouble now,” he quipped, “Sharpshooter or no.”

Pidge pushed away from the wall they were curled up next to and drifted, in zero G, to the window. (Satellites weren’t equipped with artificial gravity--why would they be? They always came back down after a few hours.) She pressed her nose against the glass and her face lit up. “Maybe, but it was definitely worth it.”

Lance floated up behind her and looked over her shoulder at the stars.

“Woah.”

The stars from Altea, some of the brightest and clearest in the galaxy due to Altea’s clean energy sources, were nothing compared to the stars from space. Lance didn’t know how to describe them. Glittering crystals embedded in the darkness, broken glass littered across the blackness, milk droplets scattered across the sky. Shining points of pure light hanging in the emptiness all around them. The stars seemed to be made of paradoxes. They were harshly bright and cold, and yet beautiful. Distant and alien, yet they wrapped around you like a blanket. It was terrifying, in a way that somehow made you feel safe.

He could feel Pidge relax beside him. And she wasn’t just loosening her muscles from the tension of the launch, but also from Altea. From being stuck on the ground.

He felt the same. Up here, things were different. Up here, he wasn’t Lance who was goofy, underappreciated, and had to outperform Keith. He was just _Lance_.

His hand slipped into hers, and to his surprise, she smiled.

No, he wasn’t just Lance. He was Lance with Pidge.

"Pidge," he said, interrupting the silence. "Let's go away. Leave Altea on a ship, out on our own. Explore space. We- we could--" He had trouble expressing his sudden dream. "I just don't want this to end."

"Me neither."

Her eyes glowed, standing out against the stars.


End file.
